Thursday, September 24, 2015

Although other members of the Royal family had travelled by
rail, especially Prince Albert, it was not until 1842 that Queen Victoria
recorded her first experience aboard a train.
This was quite a bold step for the reigning monarch considering the poor
safety record of this form of transportation.
Hardly a week went by without some reference in the newspapers
describing a railway accident and the death or injury of passengers.

Having been at Windsor, the Royal Party left the castle at
11:30 on 13 June 1842, driving to Slough where the Royal carriage was in
preparation. Describing the experience in her journal, the Queen wrote

The saloon we travelled in, on the train was very large &
beautifully fitted up. It took us
exactly 30 minutes going to Paddington, & the motion was very slight, &
much easier than a carriage, also no dust or great heat, -- in fact, it was
delightful, & so quick. We were at
Buckingham Palace by 20 m. to 1.

The train consisted of seven coaches, one of which was the
Royal saloon. The locomotive was driven
by Daniel Gooch, the chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway, who
was accompanied by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the company's chief engineer. By
1842, Brunel had already designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Great
Western, the first steamship to engage in transatlantic service and which had
been launched five years earlier.

In
a letter to her Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, dated 14 June, Victoria described her feelings about the new experience of travel
by train, concluding that she was "quite charmed with it."

As
they left Windsor Castle, the Queen and Prince Albert were met by two boys from
Eton College who presented the Queen with a congratulatory address on surviving the attempt on her life by John
Francis at the end of the previous month. As the Royal couple then headed for
the station, the Eton boys ran alongside the carriage back to their school.

Only
ten days later, the Queen and Prince Albert were once again on their way to the
railway station at Paddington. Here they
boarded the same saloon carriage. Both
were happy to leave London where the weather had been uncomfortably hot and dry
although the Queen did express some regret at having to forego "the
privacy & convenience" of the Buckingham Palace garden.

The
Royal Train, as would be expected, was carefully monitored and cared for. Even so, it was not immune to mishap. In the first week of September of 1855 it was
on its way from London to Edinburgh when it developed a series of inexplicable
problems. Notwithstanding the
extraordinary precautions taken to prevent even the slightest casualty, it
would seem that shortly after the Royal train left the metropolis it was found
that some of the axles of the carriages, especially one of the last break-van,
were not in a satisfactory state.

Running
repairs were unable to solve the problem.
In the end a man was stationed on the footboards in order to grease the
axles as the train was running. As the
train approached Darlington, one of the men stationed on the footboards was
knocked off by a girder at a culvert bridge.
"Badly crushed and mutilated" he died soon after. The situation was considered serious enough
for the Queen and Prince Albert to be moved to another carriage, one used by
other members of the Royal entourage.

The
Royals took to train travel like ducks to water. Initially, it was a particularly fast, comfortable and
efficient means of commuting between Buckingham Palace in London and Windsor
Castle. When, for example, Prince Albert needed to
return to London on 5 November 1843, he took a special train from Slough to
London. Royal visitors were among those who were ferried from London to Windsor
by these special trains.

According
to W. M. Acworth in The Railways of England, whenever the Queen travelled by
train, special precautions were taken.
All work along the line was stopped, the points were locked, trains
going in the opposite direction were halted and level crossings were closed and
guarded.

Within
18 months of the Queen's first trip, the use of the Royal train by the monarch
had become so common an event that it was being used for longer trips. The
Times reported in detail on Her Majesty's visit to Drayton, Chatsworth and Belvoir
castle in December of 1843, a visit that
involved a train trip of approximately 100 miles each way. The Royal carriage
was, according to Victoria, "most comfortable ... all lined &
furnished in light blue satin." On the same trip, they travelled by train
from Chesterfield to Nottingham via Derby.

Less
than a year later, the Queen was on her way to visit the Marquis and
Marchioness of Exeter at Burghley House, a distance of about 100 miles. Approximately half the distance was to be
covered in a special Royal carriage. By now the various rail companies were
vying with one-another to present the most splendid facilities. In
this instance the Queen was travelling with the Birmingham Railway Company and
departing from Euston station. An
elegant suite had been constructed for the use of the Royal travellers, and,
according to The Times, "everything was prepared to afford the greatest
degree of comfort to Her Majesty."

The
carriage in which she and Prince Albert were to travel had been "built and
fitted up expressly for her use on this railway in the most splendid and
tasteful manner." In fact, there were, over the years, numerous carriages built
for members of the Royal family.

In
1848, the Royal family went by the Royal Yacht to Scotland where they spent a
delightful holiday and fell in love with Balmoral castle. However, when it came time to return to
London the weather was so bad the decision was made to return South by train.
Part of the trip back involved travelling on a Sunday. The Queen clearly had strong opinions about
this, writing in her journal,

...it
being Sunday we had decided to start at 6, in order to arrive in London before
the Service as people are so very particular about travelling on a Sunday in
England, in my opinion it is overdone.

Almost
sixty years after her first trip by train the Queen was to ride, for the final
time, in the Royal Train. She was being returned to Windsor from where she had
departed on that first trip. Only this time it was for her interment.

Victoria's Funeral Train, 1901

In
the last few years there has been speculation that the maintenance,
refurbishment and continued operation of the Royal train is no longer
economical. That it makes more sense for
members of the Royal family to travel by air.
While there are strong arguments, not to mention sentimental reasons,
for continuing to have the Royal train available, it seems likely that before
long it will, like Royal yacht, Britannia, be put into mothballs.

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About Me

I regret to advise that my husband Dr Bruce Rosen died on 19th September 2017. Many thanks to all of the followers and admirers of this site over many years.

Virginia Rosen.

Retired from active teaching since 1995, I am an Honorary Research Associate in the School of History and Classics at the University of Tasmania.

Following my retirement, I administered and taught in Summer Schools at St John's College, University of Sydney and at Jane Franklin Hall, an associated college of the University of Tasmania.

I enjoy travel and for many years spent several months a year in Europe. This included a visit to Israel, a study tour of Venice, and a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. But always, always, there is Paris where, for many years I spent three months a year.

I am happy to respond, as possible, to requests for information as long as they are not anonymous and they are sent to me at bruce@tassie.org